For Now
by Negative Space Squint
Summary: Just another post-finale oneshot. Booth's POV. May become a two- or threeshot, depending on reactions.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi again... so I know that the flood of post-finale fics is daunting, but I hope this one sticks in your mind. I know that I always have the problem after reading a bunch of fanfiction of all of it meshing into one giant angst-fest in my mind, and only the really good ones stick out. Hopefully this is one of them for you guys.**

You turn the pages of the photo album slowly, frustrated and lost. Vague little details come floating to the surface with each picture – she paints, he scuba-dives. Slowly, you're remembering everyone.

Except _her_.

You could hear her scrabbling in your kitchen. The occasional clink of glasses or faint slam of a cabinet door will float through your apartment into your bedroom.

You stop, looking at a picture thoughtfully. It was obviously taken without either your or her knowledge. You were opening the door to the diner you've seen frequently in other pictures, grinning impishly. She was glaring at you through narrow eyes, obviously about to say something. You get the feeling this kind of thing happened a lot.

You slam the book closed. You want to remember _so badly._

"Dinner's ready," she says softly. You look up and are guilt-ridden to see that she still hadn't gotten rid of that look – sadly questioning your every move. Every once in a while, you'll say something, or do something, and hope will flare up in her eyes, only to be extinguished seconds later. The last time this happened was when she caught you staring at the rosary hanging from your rear-view mirror.

"_Why are you staring at that?" _

"_I'm Catholic. Really Catholic."_

"…_I don't believe in God."_

"_Oh. I guess we'll have to disagree, then."_

She had confessed her lack of faith almost hopefully, and poorly concealed her anguish at your lack of argument. Did she _want_ you to lecture her about the importance of religion?

"Thanks," you say, snapping out of your reverie. You follow her silently to your kitchen. This seems right, somehow. Sitting here, in your home, eating a meal together.

"Did we do this often? Eat together?" you ask after a moment. She looks up from the food she won't eat and nods sadly.

"All the time. It was something of a tradition. After a long day, or a difficult case…"

"Tell me about them. The cases," you ask.

She deliberates for a moment before acquiescing.

"There was one from early in our partnership… a killer involved in the mob sent me a pair of kneecaps he had removed from our victim. You refused to let me be alone. You came over to my apartment that night. You thought you were going to stay on my couch," she says, smiling.

"Go on," you prod, feeling like a child at story time.

"You were…" she stops herself, deciding on something. Something to tell you? Maybe something to leave out. You don't push her on it. She'll tell you when you're ready.

"You went to get a beer from my fridge, and the only reason the bomb that was meant for me didn't kill you was because you were reaching for a glass at the same time."

She's speaking in the same unattached, clinical tone she reserves for retellings. You wonder what would happen if lost some of that control.

"…I got blown up?" you ask disbelievingly. A tiny spark returns to her eyes. It fits within them. You want it to be there more.

"Yes. And then, when you realized that the killer was the agent you had assigned to watch me, you left the hospital without being discharged. You still had multiple broken ribs. Hodgins drove you to the warehouse where the killer had tied me up. You gave Hodgins your bulletproof vest, led the team into the warehouse, and shot the killer. That was one of the first times you've saved my life." She finishes her narration by looking up at you, gauging your reaction.

"I really did all that?" you ask quietly after a moment.

You both know you can't remember.

"Yes. You're a very brave man," she informs you.

You eat in silence for a few minutes. The fact that she's merely pushing her food around doesn't escape you.

"You should eat," you tell her. She sighs and looks back up at you. Her eyes are rimmed red.

"You always used to get me to eat more. I could have sworn you thought I had some kind of eating disorder," she tells you, a tiny smile on her face. You can't help it; you grin.

"Did you ever listen to me?"

"No. Yet you still somehow got annoyed when I stole your fries at the diner," she replies. She's nearly laughing. You decide you like this.

"I like making you laugh," you confess. She nods, the smile slipping off her face slowly.

"You always did. You were always trying to get me to lighten up."

Her words sink in and you look away uncomfortably because you both know that won't happen anytime soon. You finish the macaroni and cheese she made for you, noting that it was amazing.

"Thank you. I love macaroni and cheese," you offer. She looks sad again, searching within your eyes for the answer to some unasked question.

"I know," is all she says before collecting your plates (hers still full) and putting them next to the sink. She turns on the faucet, about to wash them, when a memory springs unbidden from the abyss of your mind.

She's crying, admitting to a travesty from her childhood. Her foster parents had locked her in a car for two days because she broke a dish. You had vowed then and there that you would never let her go through that kind of pain again.

"Don't!" you say suddenly, getting up. She spins around, confused.

"Don't what?" she asks, utterly lost. You go over to her and turn the faucet off.

"I remembered something. Your foster parents locked you in a car… because you broke a dish. It was… unfair," you say, struggling with the wording of your confession. You can tell this information makes her happy, despite the atrocity of the story.

"Yes, Booth. That was a few months ago, in Sweets' office. We were… comparing scars."

She has the hopeful edge to her voice again. You close your eyes, praying for more of the memory. She's still looking at you when you open them again.

"I can't remember," you say finally. Her face falls, like you knew it would, but she nods, accepting this.

"I'll take what I can get," she tells you. "For now."

"For now," you agree.

**So? I'm trying to decide between adding more to this, making this the first of a series of unrelated post-finale oneshots wandering around in my head, or just leaving this be. Thoughts? Leave me a review and tell me what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi again! I'm sorry for the LONG overdue update.. School is about to end for me, so things have been a little crazy irl lately. Once my summer officially starts, my schedule will be much more free :D Hopefully, the updates will be much quicker. Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter -- and I want to thank ALL who reviewed and asked for this to be continued. Truth be told, I probably would not have continued if not for those requests. So thanks for getting me off my lazy butt! Right, enough rambling. Y'all have reading to do!**

You wake up that morning panicky. She isn't there – she left last night, seeming only slightly less depressed since your breakthrough. She had lingered by the door, promising to come over in the morning before leaving, the lock clicking softly behind her. When you closed your eyes last night, you saw her.

The numbers 06:47 stare unblinkingly at you from the alarm clock next to your bed. Was it too early to call? To ask her to come over? You hadn't the faintest idea if she was a night owl or an early bird, though your gut told you she would be up. You fidgeted for three minutes, pacing around your apartment, before picking up the phone. It was only then that you realized you didn't know her number. You were about to hit the "phonebook" button when you had an idea. Your hunch was confirmed when you hit speed dial number one and her picture popped up on your screen… captioned by "dialing Bones." Bones? Was that her? It sounded comfortable in your mind, but her face was not paired with the word. To you, she was Temperance, even though the word had come out awkwardly, your tongue tripping over the syllables, when you said it. You made a note to ask her about it when she got to your place.

"Booth? You're awake early. Did you remember anything?" she asked, picking up on the first ring. You're suddenly tongue-tied. You wanted so much not to disappoint her.

"No," you finally choke out, "I didn't. But I was hoping that you could still come over… maybe tell me about some more of our cases…?" you ask cautiously.

"I'll be right over," she says, not letting her disappointment show. You sigh and hang up the phone seconds after she does so. What if today's walk down memory lane yielded nothing but pain? The doctors had warned that your memories could be lost permanently. She had taken the news calmly, clinically.

Unemotionally.

You aren't quite sure what to do with yourself in the minutes before she arrives, and it scares you. Were you always this dependent on her? You must have had some sort of life, right? Your son – he had just turned eight, she told you. You weren't sure how you would be able to take seeing Parker when the last time you could remember being with him, he was still your little baby boy. She told you that you didn't have to see him until you were ready.

A brisk knock at the door alerts you to her presence, and you instantly feel calmer. You open the door and there she stands, looking anxious and tired. You suddenly feel immensely guilty. You open your mouth to apologize, but instead what comes out is an accusatory, "You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

She looks up and, unbelievably, smiles.

"…What?" you ask, letting her past you so you can close the door behind her. She throws her keys on your counter methodically and opens your pantry.

"You were always overly concerned with my sleep habits as well as my caloric intake," she tells you, pulling the coffee beans you didn't even know you had out and beginning to make coffee.

"Oh."

You aren't really sure what else to say, so you settle for watching her make coffee – hazelnut. Your favorite. She pulls two mugs down from the cabinet above her head and places them both on the counter. You wonder how many times she's done this before. Before long, your mind wanders back to the same question that had been rolling around your head since you had first woken up to the sight of her tear-streaked face above your own.

_What were we? To each other?_

You're afraid to ask her… afraid of the answer. You shake your head, bringing you back to the present, and realize that you're both silent, and the sound of your coffeemaker churning softly is the only noise you hear.

She's looking wistfully at your couch, and her eyes wander to a cabinet in your living room. You wonder what it holds that is causing her so much grief.

"What?" you ask, capturing her attention once again.

"Um… it's nothing," she tells you, turning faintly pink. You know she's lying, and can't stop yourself from questioning her.

"You're an awful liar," you tell her, attempting a grin. She does not reciprocate with one of her own.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you," she says after a moment, "it's just that we have a lot of ground to cover before I tell you _that_ story."

This makes you even more curious than before, but you hold your tongue. The last thing you want to do is frustrate her, drive her away.

"Okay. Then let's get started," you say, sitting at the small table in front of your kitchen. She joins you after she pours coffee into the two mugs and brings them over.

*******

Four hours later, the coffee mugs are still there, both still full and stone-cold. You've learned so many things… giving her her mother's earring in New Orleans, being stoned out of your mind when you were stuck in the lab over Christmas, saving Howard Epps' life only to find out his sick, twisted truth, opening up to her about the kid who just kept _looking_ at you after you sniped his murderous father… so many cases, so many stories. You can hardly believe what sort of turmoil you've gone through with the woman sitting opposite you. She's been speaking this whole time, only stopping to answer your frequent and incredulous questions.

"So what was our next case after the army one?" you ask after a moment. She looks you in the eye; something she hasn't done frequently. She opens her mouth to speak, but closes it, looking lost. Her confusion is unusual, like the expression doesn't quite fit on her face.

"Our next case… was the one when we found my mother," she says, forcing the words out slowly and observing your reaction.

Shock ripples through your body. You gulp, not sure what to say.

"But… you told me your mother was dead when I asked about your Dad. When he came to see me in the hospital."

"She is." It's matter-of-fact, and clinical. You hate it when she's like this… like nothing affects her, like none if it's real. It's as if these stories are recounts of a different person when she adopts this detached demeanor. You look into her eyes, which relay a question: _Can you handle this story? Can you handle this part of _me?

"Tell me."

**Well? Hate it? Like it? Love it? I hope I caught Booth's character, at least somewhat. Characterization is always one of my biggest problems in fic-writing. I will also take any requests for things you all would like to see in consideration when writing these next chapters! Please review and tell me what you think!**


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